Verdicts and Settlements

$60.9 Million Verdict for Brain-Injured Baby

Led by partner Deborah J. Gander, the firm in 2005 obtained $60.9 million in injury compensation, the largest amount ever awarded in a Federal Tort Claims Act case in the country. Federal Judge Jose A. Gonzalez found the Obstetrics Clinic in Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida, liable for medical negligence in the delivery of a brain-injured baby.

Our class action team achieved a $100 million settlement from Service Corporation International (SCI), a national funeral company, and its subsidiary, Menorah Gardens Cemetery. The case alleged that the companies buried families in the wrong graves, and the company agreed to compensate for the families’ grievances and provide in-kind services.

Lion Air Flight 610 Update: Investigators Release Preliminary Crash ReportOn October 29, 2018, a Lion Air flight traveling from Jakarta, Indonesia to Pangkal Pinang crashed into the Java Sea after experiencing a flight control problem minutes after departure. There were no survivors. The Republic of Indonesia’s Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi (KNKT) recently published a preliminary report about Lion Air ...

NHTSA Investigates General Motors Over Faulty Braking SystemAccording to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), more than 2.7 million General Motors (GM) vehicles could be affected by deteriorating brake assist vacuum pumps. After receiving 111 complaints about 2014, 2015 and 2016 truck and SUV models, NHTSA has launched an ...

Marriott Discloses 500 Million Guests Affected by Starwood’s Database HackAccording to Marriott’s press release, Starwood’s guest reservation database was hacked. On September 8, 2018, Marriott International received an internal alert about an unauthorized user attempting to access the Starwood guest reservation database. Since then, investigators found copied and encrypted information from an authorized user. ...

Just How Dangerous Are Concussions to Student Athletes?

If you are a fan of the NFL, then you have probably noticed a change in the game recently. New rules have been rolling out and all these rules seem to have one goal, to lessen the severity of impacts. But why is the NFL trying to make hard hitting tackles less severe? The answer may lie in new discoveries about concussions, and those discoveries could affect your student athlete too.

How Dangerous Are Concussions?

More and more studies are finding athletes with CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy. This condition is marked by the buildup of proteins that eventually cause cell death in brain tissue. It has been blamed for depression, suicidal behavior, as well as violent behavior in athletes, and medical professionals agree that it’s caused by multiple concussions and other sports-related head injuries. This has led to several lawsuits against the NFL since players suffered injuries that may have led to this condition while playing for these organizations. So the league is taking action, but it won’t be an easy undertaking.

Analyzing this condition has been difficult for medical researchers. Diagnosing CTE is limited to postmortem analysis, which means that doctors are only able to find the condition after a person has died. That also means that athletes must donate their brains to be studied before they die and that’s causing an even bigger concern.

There are a high number of CTE findings in athletes, yet the majority of athletes are never tested for CTE after they pass. This could mean that more athletes suffer from CTE than we could have dreamed, and that has the NFL worried.

Are Concussions to Student Athletes More Dangerous than We Realize?

New rules to prevent concussions and to immediately treat athletes that suffer a concussion have taken effect in the NFL. However, these efforts have not just extended to professional sports. Professional sports organizations are trying to get youth coaches to change the way they teach football. These experts have noticed the lower concussion rates in contact sports like rugby, and they want to teach football players those safer tackling methods.

If young players are taught these safer ways to play football, then they will take these methods with them into college and professional sports. Do you think this will be the way to make football safer for a new generation of athletes? Are there other things these organizations can do to ensure the health of their players? Tell the traumatic brain injury attorneys here at Colson Hicks Edison what you think. Head over to out Facebook and Twitter page and let your voices be heard.

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(*) Disclaimer: All verdicts and settlements listed here are gross amounts before deductions for attorney fees and costs. Past results do not guarantee similar results in the future. Most cases result in a lower recovery. It should not be assumed that your case will have as beneficial a result.